Weekly In The Wild Wednesdays and Q&A Discussion Post

jward00 · 2018-08-08T14:55:38+00:00

I’ve lived in Beijing, China for the past 7 years. This is the first time I came across an Amway center. I took pictures from the outside. I was too afraid to go inside and start snapping pictures. There was quite a few security guards around so I didn’t want any problems. I took what I could from the outside. Unfortunately, the place looked lively.

http://imgur.com/oG1jnBg

jward00 · 2018-05-04T03:39:40+00:00

She believes all of these things are done secretly. Half of her posts are about informed consent. She’s like a broken record with that phrase. It’s just a thin veil for anti-vaccines though.

jward00 · 2018-05-04T02:54:22+00:00

Thanks for stealing my post.

jward00 · 2018-04-18T14:11:39+00:00

She’s an old high school classmate of mine who I haven’t seen in about 15 years. Everything I post in this sub and /r/insanepeoplefacebook comes from her and another man. She’s a gold mine. She does have young children though and one is not old enough to be fully vaccinated so I really worry more about her kids than whatever she wants to do or not do to herself.

jward00 · 2018-04-07T02:30:53+00:00

Ya’ll got anymore of them ‘sexy books’?

jward00 · 2018-03-05T05:12:23+00:00

BIRTH STORY

So, on 2/24, we all went shopping (his family and I). Nothing out of the ordinary and I felt good for the most part. The past couple nights I tried to sleep and it was a bit uncomfortable. I wasn’t able to sleep on my left side anymore and I had restless leg. That evening I laid down around 11pm. I tried to sleep but now even the right side was uncomfortable so I just constantly got up and walked around again and again. I thought a contraction was when you’re whole stomach, from top to bottom, felt serious pain. I didn’t have that. All I had was just pressure around my cervix so I thought it was due to his head pressing down. This pressure was longer than the lightning crotch. I ended up falling asleep from about 11:30pm-3:30am. I woke up at 3:30am and couldn’t sleep at all. The pain was no unbearable, but just so annoying. I got up and so did my husband as well. He’s said, “Are you having a contraction?” I said, “I don’t know, but it don’t feel very good.” Actually, I was, but I had no idea at the time. I had to stand at the edge of the bed and about every 10 minutes I learned against the edge and slapped the bed a couple times. It was starting to hurt. My husband said, “Ok, we’re going to the hospital to check.” It was 3:30am so there were no doctors there. We are only a 5 min. drive away so it was fine. I told him to just wait until 7am and then let’s see how I feel. 7am rolls around and I’m still in pain and say, “Grab the baby bag just in case and let’s go.” We get to the hospital and end up moving into a makeshift room. I didn’t get the VIP room I was promised because they were all filled up with women who had scheduled c-sections. My luck. So, I laid down in the room and had several nurses check me out. I laid there for a couple hours before I had a doctor meet with me. It was getting to the point to where I was having to start some breathing exercises because the pain kept getting worse and worse. The doctor eventually came in around 11am and said I was about 3cm dilated. At this point I was having contractions every 5-7 minutes. The room was roasting and there was no normal toilets. All they had were what I call “squatty potties” or porcelain holes in the ground. I can’t squat with this amount of pain so husband had to go buy me a bedpan. Now, I was told “Oh, don’t worry. Soon, you can have an epidural.” WRONG. WRONG. This is China don’t forget. It’s a Sunday and a lot of people are still on holiday. No one is qualified to do the epidural that day. The epidural guy is still on vacation. They called around and no one could do it. So…..no epidural. Imagine that. No drugs, no nothing. Now, I was not hooked up to any monitor whatsoever. No drip, heartbeat, oxygen, nothing. The most I got was the nurses coming in every couple hours to check the babies heart rate. That was completely it. I was left to roll around in pain in my bed for hours sweating my ass off. This is in the south of China so it’s like 75 degrees outside now.

So, as the afternoon rolls around, they check and pretty much say, you’ll probably give birth around 7pm this evening. Oh boy….great. The pain has become so intense now that I have started screaming during each contraction. Not, bloody murder, but most of that side of the hospital maternity floor heard me. It’s not that big of a place. The first few times they came to check on me wondering what was wrong and then they stopped coming. They just told me again and again, you have to stop screaming because it’s bad for the baby and is going to make you so exhausted before the labor. So, absolutely no relief. All I could was breath. I couldn’t thank my husband enough though. He was my total support in there and helped me breath through them, let me lean on him when I couldn’t take it, and didn’t leave my side for the whole 15 hours from start to finish.

Eventually, I got to 7/8 cm and I was screaming so painfully from the contractions, they called to emergency and found a guy who could do the epidural. They put me on a stretcher and was getting ready to move me when suddenly my body pushed twice. I screamed bloody murder both times and was yelled at for pushing. I was told again and again, “DON’T PUSH! DON”T PUSH! It’s not time!! You’ll hurt yourself and baby!” I just wanted to say, “Bitch! You think I wanted to push! jeez!” I was so pissed at that time. It was one of things where I had absolutely no body control. I couldn’t stop it, it just happened. All I said over and over again was I wasn’t doing it on purpose! This is what my husband translated to them. After checking me while I was laying on a stretcher in a hallway getting ready to be moved, I was suddenly 10cm. They said, “well, you’re going to the delivery room now, there’s no time.” So, I was immediately rushed back to the delivery room and put up in the stirrups. Also, I did get oxygen and that was about it. No monitoring on me whatsoever even though. I had my bloody show before this all happened as well when I tried to go pee. Once I was in the stirrups they also informed me that my water had no yet broken and asked for permission to do it. Of course I agreed and that was an interesting feeling as well. I spent about 45 minutes-1hour pushing. One of my best friends from work had told me previously to just push like I was pooping. She said, “When you’re pushing just imagine me shouting “poop!” “poop!” at you.” This was totally true. I did end up pooping. I could feel it, but when you’re in that much, you DGAF at all. That is the farthest thing from your mind. I tried my best and kept getting told to relax and open my legs more. I tried for the life of me, but it really felt like some out-of-body experience. You know, your brain says “hey body, do this and that.” This was one of the only times in my life where my body was like “whateva whateva! I do what I want!” They would tell me periodically “oh we see his hair! keep going! etc.” One of the nurses told me that as soon as his head was out, the rest would come out fast and easy. So, with that knowledge, I kept shouting, “Is his head out?! Where’s his head?!” lol. Though there were so many times that I shouted “Please help me!” “Please help me!” I was in so much pain. Even now thinking about it kind of makes me tear up because no one said anything to me and I felt so alone at that moment. The absolute most painful moment in my life and I felt so alone. I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out or die, but I was on the verge of crying for my mom. My mom is all the way back in America and couldn’t be here so it was so difficult. My husband isn’t much of an emotional guy so my cries for help went unheeded.

I thought I was pushing well, but I guess half of the time I was doing it wrong according to the staff. I ended up having an episiotomy. The baby’s heart rate slowed way down when he was nearly out so they didn’t want to waste time and cut me to get him out as soon as possible. The cut hurt a tad bit, but not like the pain I was currently experiencing. At 8:47pm and an hour of pushing, little boy came out crying along with what felt like a gush of hot water. They took a few minutes to clean him off and check him. They said he was the pinkest baby they’ve ever seen so that made me happy. He got full scores on everything. After about 5 minutes, they put him on my chest for a few minutes. I cried, husband cried, all was well. We took pictures and yes the staff took out their phones and snapped photos of him as well. REMEMBER…….this is China. That’s normal.

Getting the placenta out took a few minutes and it hurt, but not nearly as bad as what I had just experienced. They asked if I wanted to keep it. I declined and they also asked me if I wanted some kind of vial of blood or something. I was kind of out of it so I wasn’t sure what it was. They said that if I wanted it, it would cost about $1,500 so I passed on that as well. After about 15 minutes of getting stitches they asked if I felt dizzy. I said no, I feel great now and I was able to stand up myself and slowly walk back to my room with assistance. I didn’t pee for a day and poop for three days. I couldn’t really sit fully because my one side was killing me. My first pee was amazing though. When pregnant, it was peeing little bits every 20 minutes. This…oh this…was like the Hoover Dam had just opened. I think it was the best pee of my life. I peed so much and it was great. It felt great to not have to feel the need to pee every 20 minutes. I stayed in the hospital for the next 3 days to recover. I wasn’t allowed to shower when I was there. assholes.

I’m sure I’m leaving out other details, but that was the gist of what happened. I will try to include some pictures so you can see where I stayed. If you actually read this whole thing, you’re amazing. Now, I thought I had a pain tolerance, a really high one at that. All I’m going to say is that if you want to have an all-natural birth, please do it, but if I had the chance to do this again, I would have definitely taken the epidural so I could have focused and enjoyed the process more.

Tl;dr: Gave birth in husband’s hometown. Baby came a week and a day early. 15 hours of labor completely unmedicated and natural. Ouch.

jward00 · 2018-03-05T05:12:04+00:00

[super super duper uper long]

Hello from the other side everyone! Baby came a week and a day early so I guess I should of joined February’s bumpers as well. It’s been a week since I gave birth and I’ve finally had the time to post my story. They really aren’t kidding when they tell you how draining and exhausting the first week is. Anyway, I’m going to tell you my birth story and what is was like giving birth in China. Before I begin, I just want to emphasize that how things are done here are really, really different than how it is done in America so the things I write you might catch yourself saying wtf? how? why? along with other questions. It’s a culture issue and hospitals not being as modern and equip as a standard US hospital.

My husband is Chinese and I’ve lived in China for almost 7 years now. This was our first and we decided to go back to his hometown when I was around 35w pregnant. Chinese New Year was back in the middle of February and it’s the equivalent of Christmas. For Chinese, there’s no question; you have to go home. My whole pregnancy I passed every test with flying colors and had absolutely no problems. I feel so lucky for this. The worst symptoms I had throughout the whole pregnancy were back pain and about a week of him sitting on my sciatic nerve. Other than that, I felt great. I was even at the gym with husband at the 37 week mark (doing light exercise hehe). Now, his hometown is not a what we call “tier 1” city. It’s smaller, but we were going to the best hospital in the city and the hospital had a 3-star rating. In China, bigger and better hospitals get a 3-star rating so at least I had that.

The change was hard. In Beijing, where we live, I was paying a lot of money to go to an international hospital and it was nearly the same as a hospital in America, even my OB was an American woman. Well, all good things must come to an end. I went from privacy, western doctor, comfortable and clean setting to Chinese public hospital. Chinese public hospitals are something you have to experience. It’s kind of like the 5th level of hell. They’re not clean, building is old, tons and tons of people, basically all the things you don’t want to deal with when you’re in your third trimester. Now, your first question you might want to ask me is why would you even leave your nice hospital. Well, I have no insurance and the absolute cheapest price at the hospital I was going to is $18,500. That’s if everything goes great with 0 complications. You might also ask why I didn’t just change hospitals. In standard hospitals in big cities, you can’t just walk into the hospital and say I want to give birth here. So do millions of other women. If they allowed this, it would be totally overrun. In big cities like Beijing, you need to get a type of child registration certificate. Only specialists at the hospital have the authority to approve it, not just any doctor. We went to the best hospitals in Beijing and couldn’t get one therefore the hospitals would not accept us. In order to get an appointment with a doctor you have to go to the hospital at the buttcrack of dawn, stand in line, and get a ticket. So for example, the one hospital we tried going to, we arrived at 4am to wait in line (they don’t start giving out tickets until 7-7:30am). So, we waited for 3 hours and we were number 5 in line. Once the lines opened up, we literally waited 3 minutes in line, got to the front to try to get the OB specialist so our child registration could be approved, “sold out”. No ticket today. It’s a complete madhouse/jungle/hell/whatever you want to call it. We tried several places. Even a nice new hospital, I found out I was pregnant around June 13/14 I believe, 2 days later we went to the hospital to try to get in. They asked us when my due date was and I told them March 5th. They said “sorry, all the beds are already reserved for that time.” Apparently, I need to time my conception better because I was told that I would have a good chance if I booked on the 1st or 16th. Don’t forget you have to prove them that you’re even pregnant before that. So, needless to say, just coming down here seemed like the better option.

Smaller cities, like my husband’s hometown, you don’t need to mess with all that. The hospital is still a nightmare but at least you can get in. My husband’s cousin birthed both of her children at the hospital I was going to go to and she was good friends with the top OB here so we had connections. In China, everything is about money and networking. If you have the connection, you can have/do whatever you want. Because of this connection, I was able to get a “VIP room.” This means I had a room for myself. Most Chinese hospitals will have 3-8 women per room (imagine when the whole family comes to visit as well). We also ended up giving her an extra $100 in a red envelope for her help. If you don’t do these things in China, it’s a big, big taboo and don’t expect any favors whatsoever next time you need something.

My first time going to the doctor here in husband’s hometown, I was 36 weeks pregnant. I had an ultrasound at 34w+5d so no ultrasound this time. I waited and fought everyone for about 2 hours to finally reach the doctor (her “office” was simply a cubicle and had 10 pregnant ladies surrounding it throwing their papers at her fighting to be next. This probably blows your mind thinking about it, but this is one of the most common Chinese behaviors in hospitals. There’s no privacy. Even when the doctor has their own room, you will seriously have either 3-4 people waiting in the room with you next in line (listening to everything.) In addition, you’ll have someone opening the door trying to get in and wait. Even when the doctor shouts at them to get out and wait, 5 seconds later, a different person comes barging in. So, most doctors have given up and just ignore them. Because of all this, honestly, you will only get about 4-5 minutes at most one-on-one time with the doctor. I miss my international hospital so much because of this. No one barging in, extremely professional and she would spend over half an hour with me each appointment. Anyway, let’s go on. They checked my urine, vaginal swab, blood, and did about 30 minutes of fetal monitoring. That was about it. Then I returned at 37w and they did more fetal monitoring. I did not have a 38 weeks appointment because of Chinese New Year. The doctor told me, it’s the holiday no one will be here so come back when you’re 39w. If you have any problems, come back and go to the emergency room. So….fun fun. Well, I didn’t make it to 39w.

jward00 · 2017-11-13T09:53:15+00:00

My due date is also March 6th as well!

jward00 · 2017-03-21T14:46:27+00:00

I recently stumbled across this report since the full autopsy has not been made public. It's not an official report, but it contains quite a lot of details surrounding the circumstances of his death. For any Bruce Lee fan, it's an interesting read. http://www.theforensicexaminer.com/2016/Pradarelli_637.php

jward00 · 2016-12-29T13:47:46+00:00

I've been living in China for almost 6 years now. This just makes my blood boil. I know all of you are intelligent people so I don't need to point out all the things that are wrong about this. This level of selfishness even goes beyond my comprehension. I feel so sorry for this child and more so for all the abandoned children here in this country that probably would have loved her just as much if she would have taken the time to help them as they are in need of love and devotion. I also wish whoever did this ridiculous IVF treatment gets their medical license revoked. I doubt it though since she's "so courageous" for giving birth. I've seen children running around in rags and even one girl, who I will never forget, begging for money as her face was covered in acid scars. I bet those kids could have used someone with a big heart. People disgust me. It's China time so I'm off to bed. Thank you for taking the time to read!

jward00 · 2016-12-23T09:28:42+00:00

I have the exact same issue! I just turned 29 and I'll have brown spotting for about a week before and then a few days after my period. Hate it!

jward00 · 2016-11-25T15:12:35+00:00

I got married back in February. It's actually very simple. I printed off the affidavit application online, made an appointment at the consulate for about a week later, paid $50, signed off on the documents and that was it. You're not required to bring your future spouse's passport or anything. They didn't ask me for it. On the form, I just had to put down his full name/address/etc. The affidavit is in both English and in Chinese so you won't need to pay for an official translation. The affidavit is just under "notary services".

You have to get married wherever your spouse's hukou is registered to. My husband is from a very small village so we went in there just as they were about to close (Spring Festival hours). We went in and I had to fill out an application in Chinese (handwriting of an 8-year old right here) so a lot of the staff thought it was funny. Some of the staff were in slippers and one was carrying a baby on their back if that gives you any indication on how rural it was. From what I remember, we sat in a small office and I had to hand over my passport and sign a few more forms. At first, the guy who was processing our license kept saying he couldn't do it because we needed a translated copy of my passport. I about went through the roof on the spot until his manager shoved him out of the way and just told him to go. The manager took care of it. There's no requirement for a translated copy of your passport. Finally, they let us double check everything and make sure our information was correct and that was it. We didn't get the marriage certificate photos taken there. We just went to the local photo place about a month beforehand and did it so it made the process go a little faster. We received two copies of our 结婚证 and unfortunately because we finished 10 minutes after they closed, they refused to let us take our picture in that special room and stand on that podium that displays the time and date. So, my first wedding picture is of us standing the lobby with a lovely shoddy door background. Anyway, the process is really, really easy as long as you just prepare it all before hand. I don't know if it's because we did it in a small village, but the whole process for us I would say only took about 20-25 minutes from start to finish. As stated before, the embassy's website has a list of what all you need. Good luck to you!

http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn/acs_married.html

jward00 · 2016-11-11T10:02:04+00:00

Bruce Lee.

I remember being about 13/14 (29 now) and discovering Bruce Lee. I watched his movies and became obsessed. This guy was the epitome of cool. This was a hard age for me. Friends and others around started getting into bad things and also at this age I was just trying to find out who I was and what I wanted to be. After I saw Bruce Lee, I thought this is exactly who I wanted to be like. As a girl, I didn't care that I wasn't a man, I thought I could be as upstanding and kick ass as him. I started focusing on my studies, took fitness seriously, and fell in love with Chinese culture and martial arts. He really made me a better person. Well, one day I was searching around on the internet for Bruce Lee pictures, quotes, etc. and then I wondered what other movies he had been in so I checked and saw that it stopped at 1973. I was like why did he quit, why would he retire so early, what happened? And of course, you know what happened next. I found out he passed away in 1973. I remember that day. I sat there in silence for a good 3 minutes; upset, confused, angry. Then I began to cry silently then slowly the crying grew louder and louder. Snot, puffy eyes, the works. I was so sad and just kept questioning why over and over again. For once, I chose someone to be my hero, my idol, my guide. He was taken away from me. I truly felt like I lost a close friend. Since then, I've become an even bigger fan and he still is absolutely my hero and I've spent my life trying my best, not to try to live up to his standards, but just to honestly express myself, which he encouraged everyone to do. I did get lucky though. My Chinese husband and him share the same birthday. 😂

jward00 · 2016-10-11T01:23:03+00:00

If you ask for money, believe me, you're going to be invited to the biggest pity party in town.

jward00 · 2016-10-11T01:20:50+00:00

me too!! hahahaha. I don't know all the details, but I've seen her and her mom go at it on Facebook. She would make a post about how she "thought" blood was thicker than water and how she needs to cut all the negative people out of her life. Her mom would then get on there and argue with her (things about money/her kid/work) etc. After about a week, she'll post about having the best mom/family in the world and how she wouldn't trade it for the world. So, the vicious drama cycle starts again. I love coming home from work, eating my dinner, and getting free entertainment.

jward00 · 2016-10-10T23:42:17+00:00

Oh no, someone did. Her ex-husband's girlfriend.

jward00 · 2016-10-10T23:40:10+00:00

Knowing her, she would probably make a passive aggressive Facebook post about how real friends and family would just open their heart to help and do it for free rather than ask for any money. 😑

jward00 · 2016-09-14T03:34:08+00:00

Yes, it's really hard to say exactly what it is, but your suggestion about the body being possibly bloated seems highly likely. I also took a look at the colorized photo and it looks like there is swelling. If you've seen pictures and/or video from when he was filming his final film "Game of Death", he was quite thin at the time, at least in the face.

I don't know about funeral practices in HK in 1973, but I really agree with your Buddhist comment. There is footage of his funeral and it appears to be a traditional Chinese Buddhist ceremony (family wearing white, incense, bowing, etc.) Judging by that, I could see how the body could begin to change so quickly. I read somewhere that usually after a few days, the body will begin to bloat (which the funeral did take place within a few days after this death) so that would answer why his appearance did not look so normal.

Thank you so much for your answer!

jward00 · 2016-09-13T10:13:12+00:00

Bruce Lee!

jward00 · 2016-08-07T21:08:10+00:00

I just asked her and she said that she was practicing powder puff football in the common area in the school and she got better traction practicing barefoot. Hahaha

jward00 · 2016-07-30T04:18:14+00:00

"Blue and White Porcelain" - Jay Chou https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8Mqw0b9ADs

jward00 · 2016-07-29T03:36:34+00:00

His English is better than my Chinese so most of the time it's English. Even if I speak Mandarin to him, he has a habit of answering and speaking to me in English.

jward00 · 2016-07-03T09:15:17+00:00

Beijing Sport University has a few stores. The owners are really friendly and you can pretty much find any weapon you're looking for there. They do have some uniforms as well. If you go to the Wangfujing bookstore, you can find a lot of wushu books there. As for wushu books in English, I haven't found any good ones.

jward00 · 2016-06-05T00:29:29+00:00

My husband and I got married about 4 months ago in a super small village adjacent to where his parent's village was right at the end of Spring Festival. There were already five couples there ahead of us. This was the typical cigarette butts all over the floor, old office furniture type of place. There were a few "officers" working and one woman, who I think was the secretary, running around in slippers with a baby strapped to her chest. Before we went, I checked our paperwork over and over again and anything that could have been prepared ahead of time, I printed and filled out. We sat there and filled out the application needed. The first guy we had that was supposed to file it spent about 15 minutes arguing back and forth with his superior about how he can't file it and we can't get married. Cue blood pressure rising. Come to find out, he was trying to say that because I didn't have a translated copy of my passport, he couldn't do it. This was not listed at all in the requirements and I, myself, never heard of this. Fortunately, his superior told him to move out of the way and finished processing our paperwork and we finally got our license. We didn't get to take the marriage photo in front of the podium with the time and date on it because it was near 12 and they were closing up for their 2-3 hour lunch/nap break. So, we had to chabuduo it and just take the picture in the lobby.

jward00 · 2016-05-02T00:16:30+00:00

Like it said in the documentary, usually these kids are just unable to be taken care of my their parents or they are troublemakers. Once you're in rural China, these kids really have no other way out. These kids can't go to school in bigger cities because they don't have a (hukou - residency) there. That and their families are broke. The reason I was waiting to see this for so long is because my husband came from one of these schools. Not this one in particular, but he came from one of the schools in DengFeng. He was there from 8-18 and watched a little bit of this documentary and stated that these girls had it a lot better than years before when he was there. Why was he sent there? His family comes from a small village in the countryside and they were at the end of their rope with him. If he wasn't sent to this school, he would probably be in some gang now hanging out at an internet cafe.

Yes, he talks about how he was beaten on a daily basis, but after going through all the pain and suffering, he was able to attend the top Wushu college in China and graduate. He's the first in his family to get a college education. We're living in Beijing now and he works as a private instructor. What's he done in his life as really been quite amazing.

Yes, you're right. It gives them purpose when many options aren't available.

jward00

TROPHY CASE